The latest phenomenon scorching across the net is a little service called Twitter. Even though twitter recently turned a year old, it’s been the past few months that the service has begun to grow beyond the typical first adopter crowd. Everyone from the Dark Lord to presidential candidates can be found on the service. But what exactly is Twitter?
It’s a question not easily answered. It’s been described as a mini blog and an IM status on steroids. It’s accessible from the web, via IM, through SMS on your cellphone or a plethora of other mini applications and plug-ins. It’s a question the folks at twitter choose to answer with a question. What are you doing?
That’s the question you’re presented with. Some choose to take it literally (my current twitter status is “writing about twitter”). Some use it as a sort-of stream of consciousness tool. Others use it a communication device. However you choose to use it, your limited by 140 characters. While this limit is to account for SMS compatibility, I believe it’s part of what gives the service it’s identity. Anything more, it’s just another blog. Anything less, it’s a standard IM status message.
The first question most people new to the service ask is “Why do I want to do this?”. I asked myself the same question. It’s not until you start using it that you kind of get it. For one, it’s fun coming up with something to write within the character restrictions. But the more fascinating aspect for me is looking at your twitter stream. You get a mini history of what was apparently important enough for you to twitter about, but not necessarily important enough to blog about. A kind of “lifestream”. Even more fascinating is watching your friends streams or even the public timeline. At times you can get a “collective” feel to what’s going on in the world.
Now thanks to it’s open API, it’s begun to be utilized in other ways. Twittermap combines Google maps and Twitter allowing to you to see who’s twittering from where. And Twittervision takes that to the next level by updating in realtime.
Overall this is a service that is still trying to define itself. But in the end it will be the Twitter API and how the users choose to utilize it that shape it’s direction. However it evolves, it’s developers know they have something special. Twitter’s parent company Obvious is selling off it’s other service Odeo, a podcasting service, to concentrate on Twitter. They probably don’t have much to worry about though. After all, they do have the Dark Lord on their side.